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Professor John Robertson OBA
The Herald‘s Steven Camley cartoon today show a glum Health Secretary being greeted by support staff with:
‘I must say minister you’re looking well after your summer of inactivity.’
It’s about criticism of Scotland’s care system by a representative of the private sector just wanting more cash for a business already well-known as a ‘cash-cow‘ for corporations and which has no space for these important facts:
If this was more than just another badly drawn image on behalf of corporations and other business interests to scare us into paying them more, how would this be possible?
Four times as many, per head, waiting for a social care assessment or package in England than in Scotland
From People requiring a social care assessment and care at home services published today by Public Health Scotland:
The number of people estimated to be waiting on a social care assessment for a package of care to enable them to live independently at home or in the community was 6,461 on 7 April 2025. The estimated number of people assessed and waiting for a care at home package was 2,852 on 7 April 2025.
That’s a total of 9 313 ‘waiting for an assessment of their needs or for help to begin.‘
All things being equal, with 10 times the population, you might expect England to have around 100 000 on their waiting list , but:
From the Local Government Association in November 2024 (latest data I can find):
There has been increasing interest in the use of metrics relating to waiting lists and waiting times for adult social care assessment, provision of support and direct payments and reviews of support. This is particularly relevant in light of growing demand (over 400,000 waiting for an assessment of their needs or for help to begin) and increasing complexity of need.
Four times as many waiting for a social care assessment or package.
How many private care homes have closed in recent years? Only 5% . https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23937550.care-homes-scotland-hundreds-premises-close-decade/
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
The Herald….part of the media #SNPBAD group within Scotland.
A cartoon ?
Meant to be sardonic or sarcastic ?
Yet surely it should also be funny if it is meant to be a cartoon…….as there has to be at least some degree of accuracy in what he is trying (and badly failing) to be sardonically or sarcastically funny about…. surely ?…….
Missed the mark though did he not ….as your article declares “Four times as many, per head, waiting for a social care assessment or package in England than in Scotland“…..so what really is the point of this ‘cartoon’ ?
As it just falls into yet another Herald piece that is #SNPBAD.
BTW , you should check out MSM Monitor’s ‘X’ account , as he has compiled a montage of videos clearly showing the lengths to which BBC reporters will go to in order to target specific SNP politicians at the whiff of any assumed scandal….in stark comparison to their, BBC’s, lack of effort and interest in chasing after (doorstepping) Anas Sarwar or indeed any other Labour MSP’s at Holyrood on the Colin Smyth scandal……..(or indeed on the suspension of one of their Labour colleagues, Brian Leishman, from the Labour party).
The majority of the media in Scotland have a mission in their coverage of politics here within Scotland………and that is to commit to communicate , as a constant, a political and partisan combined message of #SNPBAD……..
They fail to convince everybody on this combined message of #SNPBAD as a lot of people in Scotland recall how badly the Tories formerly were as the previous UK government and now they also see how bad Labour HQ have proven to be as the new UK government……..
I hope a majority of people will also realise how disastrous a decision it will be in any of them voting for Reform UK in Scotland (and elsewhere in the UK) as they, as a pretend party, are just a more extreme version of both Labour and the Tories…..
However once again the media here and elsewhere fail to communicate truth and facts and so (yet again) they, the media, fail to the job they should be doing as a media…..in them communicating to the public just how #BAD Reform UK truly are , as a pretend party and also as those who potentially could catastrophically change everything within their UK for the worse……..
That is , if they , Reform UK should indeed gain any real political power in their UK………which also could potentially decimate Scotland…..as devolution could be reversed by them to then be replaced , once again, by a UK centralised government again controlling everything and everywhere within their UK………….
Then of course the majority of the media here and also elsewhere within the UK failed to communicate, to the public, a message of #BrexitBad….indeed there was a widespread media Omertà applied to all things negative connected to Brexit…..and there still is….and we all know who is responsible for pushing the idea of Brexit upon the UK……Nigel Farage…the Reform UK so called leader….
The same Brexit which has had a significantly detrimental impact upon the Care Sector (staffing levels) and also upon other public sectors too….and it has also had a significant and negative impact upon the Scottish economy as well….but on that aspect the media are very determined to apply a combined #Wheesht upon it as a #BAD outcome for Scotland as part of their UK…..
#WheeshtForBrexit…..as Labour HQ, the Tory HQ party and also Reform UK all support and endorse it….but the SNP do not….hence the #Wheesht via the majority of the UK media upon it , as a UK generated and UK implemented and now also a UK sustained Tory HQ policy…………via Labour HQ as the new and current UK government.
However ‘cartoonist’s like Steven Camley do not give a Donald Duck about any #BAD UK reality, or any UK consequential that negatively impacts Scotland or indeed any of those things which have an obvious negative impact upon Scotland because of the UK connection….as he, like so many others within the media , instead prefers to only promote different versions of a #SNPBAD message…………whenever covering politics in Scotland……badly.
Which is quite ironic really when one considers how much the real #BAD for Scotland is the UK itself…..which many of these newspaper cartoonists, like Camley, fail to convey in their many weak attempts at trying to be funny …..mostly in Scotland at the expense of, yet again, the SNP !
#Fail
Liz S
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“The estimated number of people assessed and waiting for a care at home package was 2,852 on 7 April 2025.“
I hope there is no one waiting too long!
I asked Google AI about it.
“If you’re waiting for a care at home package in Scotland after being assessed as eligible, and it hasn’t started within a month, your primary legal right is to escalate your complaint to the local Health and Social Care Partnership to ensure your care starts or to get a clear explanation for the delay. For critical or substantial risk, there’s a maximum waiting time of six weeks for free personal and nursing care, and local authorities have a duty to provide a care and support plan and inform you of the services you will receive. If your needs are not urgent but you are still waiting, contact the partnership to request an earlier review or to understand when your services will begin.”
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